By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Oil was down on Friday morning in Asia over concerns that the U.S. would implement measures to cool prices, and that the latest COVID-19 outbreaks in China could dent fuel demand in the country.

By 10:24 ET (23:24 GMT), Brent oil was down 0.8% to $28.09 and crude oil fell 0.38%, to $81.66. WTI and Brent are expected to rise this week for the fourth straight week. This is due to a tight market in Libya, Kazakhstan and an increase in U.S. crude oil inventories, which fell to their 2018 lows.

Meanwhile, China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer, re-imposed stricter measures in response to the latest COVID-19 outbreaks. The

Beijing and many other cities are encouraging people to remain home over the Chinese New Year holiday. Some investors are concerned about fuel consumption because this is a high-volume travel season.

“Market is a bit toppish,” Phillip Futures commodities manager Avtar Sandu said to Reuters. He also said that there was concern about China’s COVID-19 situation and US sales of strategic petroleum resources (SPRs) were both concerning.

The U.S. Energy Department reported that it sold 18,000,000 barrels of its strategic crude oil reserves, which were worth $1.5 billion, to six businesses, among them Exxon Mobil (NYSE:).

Others are hopeful that the negative impact of Omicron on global economic growth will be temporary.

“The short-term outlook still has many risks, but optimism is high that it will be short-lived,” OANDA’s analyst Edward Moya said in a note. He added that oil prices rose to $80 per barrel when the White House was under pressure to lobby the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+), to increase their production quota.

“U.S. President Joe Biden may resort to another SPR release and while that won’t solve any problems, it could send WTI crude down to the $80 level,” said Moya.